


The day the world ended

by UnwrittenPage



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Based on a Megurine Luka Song, Blurry Lines Between Reality and Fantasy, Character Death, Depressed Battler, F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest, Non-Canon Relationship, Possibly Unrequited Love, Referenced Meta-world, Rosatrice, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, au-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:30:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6987031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnwrittenPage/pseuds/UnwrittenPage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But the portrait, even this one was as quiet as ever. It didn't matter wether he drew her wearing that big dress with the gigantic golden cutworks, her formal black business-suit or her black and red island-outfit. It didn't matter if he drew her with her hair put down and hanging down her shoulders or put up in that fancy due with the bun behind her head and the braids around her temples. It didn't matter if he drew her with her authentic brown eye-color or the sea-blue of the golden witch, whether he drew her smiling timidly like a modest school-girl or with the big smirk that appeared whenever she'd managed in tricking him in one of her never ending games. It didn't matter whether he yelled Rosa or Beatrice because even if he yelled until his throat was numb she would never answer him."</p><p>A Rosatrice-AU based on the song Leia by Megurine Luka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The day the world ended

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so another Battler x Rosa-fic from me this time based on a Megurine Luka-song named Leia. If you know the meaning of that song you know that it is pretty morbid so if you´re not down with that type of thing I suggest you go elsewhere. 
> 
> This fic is based on the idea of Battler surviving without his memory-loss and Beatrice dying. 
> 
> Also, this is Rosatrice, a long ago disproved non-canon theory that I love playing around with (even though the canon-solution is really interesting as well) so if that upsets you this may not be the fic for you. 
> 
> With that said though. If you´re still here. Enjoy :)

"Please talk to me", the red haired man's voice was a mere whisper as he looked down at the portrait in front of him, cracked and hoarse from hours and hours of crying and yelling.

The painting depicted a woman who appeared to be in her 30s with long sandy-brown hair that reached far beneath her shoulders and a long black dress that reached all the way to her feet, a white collar with a significant golden cutwork of what appeared to be a one-winged eagle covering her chest. Her brown eyes seemed to look straight at the viewer and her soft smile had an unreadable expression to it which could be interpreted as everything from amused to outright melancholic and maybe, just even maybe a smirk.

"I have been patient long enough now", the young man starred desperately into those riddling dark eyes, "why won't you share your thoughts with me?"

But the portrait, even this one was as quiet as ever. It didn't matter wether he drew her wearing that big dress with the gigantic golden cutworks, her formal black business-suit or her black and red island-outfit. It didn't matter if he drew her with her hair put down and hanging down her shoulders or put up in that fancy due with the bun behind her head and the braids around her temples. It didn't matter if he drew her with her authentic brown eye-color or the sea-blue of the golden witch, whether he drew her smiling timidly like a modest school-girl or with the big smirk that appeared whenever she'd managed in tricking him in one of her never ending games. It didn't matter whether he yelled Rosa or Beatrice because even if he yelled until his throat was numb she would never answer him.

This day he had even drawn her on the throne, that famous throne where everyone allowed to use the title Beatrice had sat since Virgillia, a portrait as accurate to the one lost in the Rokenjima-massacre as he could manage. But it seemed not even such a gesture could make the ever wanton golden witch open that eerily smiling mouth of hers.

"Damn it, Rosa!" he said with that cracked voice of his, "you told me that you didn't want to take my life didn't you but, haven't you realized that you already did?"

Oh yes, Ushiromiya Rosa had taken everything from Ushiromiya Battler that day over 3 years ago. His parents, his cousins, his friends, his childhood home, his sanity and yet the one thing he couldn't forgive was what she'd taken away from him the instant she'd let go off his hand as she'd fallen down to the bottom of the ocean. Why couldn't she have allowed him to take her with him or at least let him return with her to the golden land?

A creature of illusion she'd said and sometimes he wondered if he wasn't a creature of illusion himself. Because he hadn't spoken to or been seen by a soul for months and the only signs that could possibly confirm his existence were here in this very apartment where no one had gained entrance for over a year.That fact didn't bother him though because the only one he wanted in this apartment was here with him, all over his walls, all over his drawers, all over his soul. And yet she was so far away from him. Her beautiful lips refused to part to answer his questions, her violently expressive eyes refused to reflect her true emotions and her slender, well-shaped hand refused to reach out from that confinement of rough paper to drag him into whatever world she lived in. He didn't even care if said world was nothing but the canvas she was captured inside because as long as they were allowed to be together such trivial things as space and time would not matter anymore but apparently the secretive golden witch did not share that view.

She looked back at him, her riddling smile only serving to making him even more confused, her dark eyes not even showing a hint of the answers he sought. Battler sighed as he painted another highlight in the witch's hair. Sand brown with golden sparkles frighteningly similar to the single ingot they had taken with them during their last boat-tour. Battler had never really had any interest in drawing but as he'd gradually realized that his writing could in no way recreate the many faces of the golden witch he'd been forced to learn a new strategy. It had taken time, as expected when learning something new but he supposed his determination to see the woman he loved had been far stronger than his youthful impatience. If anything he was or did could indeed be considered youthful anymore.

"You thought I was too young to die, didn't you?" Battler muttered, "but didn't you realize that my youth disappeared with the first blood drop you spilled".

It was strange, how forgiving love could be. He'd allowed her to take from him the last remaining portion of what was close to his heart, and yet it seemed the very last shredded pieces belonged to her and her alone. He had broken a promise. Not to her and yet he knew that that broken promise had been the very last straw to bringing forth her fatal transformation.

He was sorry, so terribly sorry. He didn't know how many times he'd said that. He was sorry for breaking Shannon's heart, he was sorry for condemning his entire family to a fate that they despite of all their flaws didn't deserve, he was sorry for ruining Rosa's last reason to believe in the good of mankind, he was sorry for not being able to hold on to her hands that fateful day and above all he was sorry for not being able to let go of them today. Battler sighed as he now looked down at the complete portrait.

"So what would you have me do then?" he said, "go back in time?" Apparently that was possible as had been proven by the infamous Miracle Witch so many times but apparently as had been proven in equally as many worlds before going back in time never had any good outcomes. And even if he wanted to there was no way he'd be able to do such a thing now. Once he had been Battler the golden sorcerer of miracles the man who could turn any situation no matter how hopeless around, the man who'd defeated Bernkastel the endless witch and revived his beloved golden witch after what had seemed like the most certain death one of her kind could ever face. Now however he was a useless human to weak even to take hold of his own life.

"Lord of the Golden Land", he muttered as his gaze wondered around the dust gathered on the floor, the dirty tea-cups spread out all over the sink, table and bookshelves and the trays from the vase he'd broken in rage last night, "I am not even the lord of my own apartment. What were you thinking, pushing the title of territory-lord unto me?"

But big glamorous dress, elegant hair due and extraordinary powers regardless Rosa had always been Rosa and underneath those crazed laughs, raw words and that confident exterior she was still that modest, self-doubting woman who had broken his heart with her self-loathing already back when he was a small child.

"The fault was also yours", he said softly, "you pushed more on to me than even the sorcerer of miracles could handle".

Of course the promise he'd given over 10 years ago had been meant for her first and foremost but the moment she'd gently yet laughingly said that such a beautiful promise should be given to someone whom he could share his life with and not an old lady like herself it had stopped being hers altogether. She had had no right to decide over a promise that she herself rejected, had no right to decide over a love-life that she herself had refused to be part of. She had had a soft spot for Shannon, he'd always known that but he had also known that a soft spot for a 10 year old girl wouldn't have been enough to destroy an entire island. No, what Battler had broken with that promise had been a far more basic engine than a teenage girl's heart, something that had made an entire castle collapse. Even if said castle had only been made of sand to begin with...

"I would have kept my promise", Battler could feel a tear find its way down his cheek as he looked at the portrait, "if you had allowed it to remain yours". But his golden haired Mona Lisa's expression had given him nor forgiveness nor accusations. She was mute, just like the papers and pencils she'd been reborn from, a being who although just as physical as the hand that drew her may as well have been as much of an illusion that she'd claimed to be that day when Ushiromiya Battler had died. The day it seemed he'd died and gone to his own personal hell. Because hell was exactly what this apartment as well as the world outside it was. Being torn apart by goats, being impaled by the gigantic sword of truth he would gladly have bared any other pain than this. An existence of loneliness, frustration, regrets, anger and eternal sorrow that could not be reversed by any possible means.

"Do what you want with me", Battler whispered as he looked at the portrait, "kiss me, stab me, hold me, burn me. At least... please do... something. I deserve a lot. But this silence...", he pressed his head against the table, "no one deserves this".

He lay with his head resting against the smooth timber for a while that would most likely have counted as at least a year in The Golden Land. He stared only at the black wood, pretending that it was the table in the meta-world where they'd fought so many battles both as enemies and allies. He wished she would scorn him like back then, insult him and call him useless and then laugh that laughter that he'd once found so unpleasant. For the longest of time he'd just begged for those games to come to an end and now he just wished that they never had. Back then he had called it a never ending torture but back then he hadn't known what never ending torture was.

A thousand years may have past in the golden land but a million years had also passed here. Rosa could point out that they were only 3 all she wanted and that he still had time to do an endless amount of things with the ones still left but just as the gravity of the sin depended on the one measuring so did time, and just like she had no right deciding over a promise she'd refused to take to heart she had no right having opinions about a time-line she refused to be part of. Given she had any opinions at all...

Battler didn't want to lift his head from that table. He didn't want to open his eyes to look at the broken kingdom he'd made for himself. Didn't want to see those blank unfriendly walls, that cold red couch, the chandelier which didn't lack beauty but most definitely personality and above all not the thousand faces of the woman who refused to look at him with nor the love, nor the despise she'd once directed so intensely at him, and him alone. With a resoluteness that he hadn't felt in a long time Battler looked up at the golden witch again, firmly grabbing a pen between his fingers.

"What I don't see don't exist", he said as he looked into those unreadable brown eyes. He didn't even scream as the edge hit his eyes. Normally he'd think the pain was unbearable but the torment from what felt like a thousand years made the physically torment a welcome distraction from the mental one.

                                                                                                                                           _._

 

Battler grabbed hold of the coarse wood as he leaned against the cane. He had had it for one month now and was far from adapted to it. He had honestly believed it'd be much harder to get used to a life without sight though to be honest he wasn't sure if what he'd done the last years could be considered seeing anyway. Being that he actually was the only one witnessing these things anyway. These walls, this broken glass, these tea-cups, the female faces that refused to talk to him how could he be sure they'd even existed to begin with?

'I am a creature of illusion' he heard that soft alto voice in his head just as clearly as he had that very day. The very day when the end of the world had been set in motion. She may have been right. He couldn't disprove that because just like the paintings that he now was glad that he could no longer set eyes on no one other than him had witnessed her existence that day. No one had witnessed that raw yet warm laughter, the sadness in those by then sea-blue eyes as she'd wondered what the point of starting over anew could possibly be, no one had during those short instances felt those smooth lips against their own and then even shorter instances ago against their ears. Such a ridiculously short moment in time yet the one of the billions and billion ones that actually counted.

He had promised to stop asking himself why because he knew exactly why she'd let go of his hands that day. He knew exactly why she'd asked 'how' when he'd told her to live, he knew exactly why she'd asked what the entire purpose of it all was. It was a reason everyone could accept except for him, a reason as clear as the single ingot they'd brought with them that particular day, a reason that would never seize to tear his heart out over and over again no matter how much time passed. You shouldn't take the witch from The Golden Land, not from the only place in which she could still exist, not to a place in which she may never have belonged to begin with.

"Then maybe I do not belong here either", he whispered.

He was not as she'd expressed it 'a creature of illusion', he was a young man of flesh and blood with his whole life ahead of him but he belonged with _her_ and if she did not belong here then nor did he. They had all scorned her, he had seen it over and over again in countless worlds. Her older siblings that should have protected her had bullied her, the father that should have made her his princess had shown her without even needing words that her existence was pointless and the man who should have cherished her and pampered her for all eternity had broken his promise and abandoned her and his very own flesh and blood for just as long or at least as long as it must have been in the Golden Land.

"I would have loved you", he said, "I would have kept that promise...", he made a short pause, "to you".

Yes, to her. Only to her. He didn't care if she was almost 20 years older, he didn't care if she was his relative because he could never love a normal woman anyway, didn´t care about the fact that she at the time when he'd given that childish promise had seen him as nothing more than just that, a 10 year old boy because that promise had been the most sincere one he'd ever given in his life. The gentle woman who'd played with him and his cousins each conference, the woman who'd patiently listened to him as he spoke about his annoyance with his father, the woman with the beautiful brown eyes and the long golden hair who could easily have been one of the princesses in the books he caught her reading when she thought no one watched.

He had wanted to save that woman from the endless disrespect and scorn she received from everyone around her at all costs. He couldn't ride and he didn't know where to find a horse but he would have managed some way somehow to give her the fairytale ending she deserved. If only she'd let him...

Of course he'd been nothing but a boy, of course he'd managed to forget about about his promise during his long time away from the Ushiromiya family, of course there had been other women in his life because he had been just what Rosa said back then a young boy who needed to live his life. He had had no idea that that promise had been so important to Shannon. No idea that it had been so important to Rosa, the woman who'd laughingly denied herself it.

"Idiot", he whispered, he didn't know if he was speaking to Rosa or himself, "you hopeless over-romantic fool".

Perhaps, just perhaps he was speaking to both of them he couldn´t help but think because after all there were times where he wondered where one of them started and the other ended.

"We said we'd never be apart again", he said softly, "maybe we should have stood by that promise. Maybe we _should_ stand by that promise". Battler smiled, a genuine smile for the first time since that fateful day. Oh the should, they definitely should.

Taking the candle he'd lit an hour earlier the young man walked to stand in the middle of the room. He was a lot more limited than he'd been a month ago but he knew the very basics of this hell called apartment, and fortunately he wouldn't need to know a lot more.

"You shouldn't take the golden witch from the golden land", he smiled as he sat down on the floor, "but you shouldn't take the golden wizard from the golden land either". Battler gently savored the wax between his palms, only instances feeling it's radiating heat before dropping it to the floor. Just like that.

"Sorry Rosa", he chuckled, "I am an impatient man. We both know that".

He thought he could see her then, slowly approaching him in the room consumed by flames, a forlorn expression on her face as she violently shook her head. She was wearing that black and red island-outfit, the one only associated with Rosa, her long brown hair hanging down her shoulders, her brown eyes filled with despair.

"You may be the golden witch", the eyes which could no longer see anything else looked straight at her, "but this is one of the matters in which you hold no power". He smiled gently at her as he reached out his arms. He could see her lips moving to form 'no', a tear falling from one of her beautiful brown eyes as she mimed it again 'no'.

"You've said that you're a creature of illusion for so long", Battler said softly, a tenderness and warmth in his voice that no one in the last years had had the privilege of witnessing, "so like it or not there's nothing you can do to stop this. You can however", he reached his long fingers towards her, "accept the fact that I to am a creature of illusion".

'No, no' another violent head shake 'no'. They were looking at each other quietly. The young man smilingly on his knees with his hands extended in front of him and the golden witch standing a few meters away from him with tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Rosa", Battler said softly, "you know that I am going anyway so will you at least let me disappear _with_ you".

The gold haired woman wiped her cheeks, head turned aside before finally looking straight at him again, a sorrowful smile on her face as she nodded. Opening his arms Battler sat still as she slowly slipped into his embrace, her warm cheek pressed against his. He let his fingers slip through her long hair as she wrapped him into her slender arms marveling at it's softness like so many years ago. She may be an illusion. He had seen her corpse on the game-board clearly enough that day to suspect as much. Shot to death by his own mother, her beautiful features twisted in resignation and the almost torturous feeling of failure.

Yet what he'd felt that day as her lips met his for the first and last time, as he'd held on to those beautiful hands for his life only to feel them slip away, what he felt today as he finally held her to his chest again was more real than anything he'd felt in 3 years.Her feminine scent, her warmth, her silky hair, those soft lips finally meeting his own after an eternity in the Golden Land.

Yes, she had been dead on the game-board long before she even set foot on that boat 3 years ago but it no longer mattered because Ushiromiya Battler was dead on the game-board to. Smiling into the embrace of the golden witch Battler didn't even flinch as the flames devoured him. He didn't care if the place he went was a world of darkness and nothingness because at the very least he'd be in that place of darkness and nothingness with her.

                                                                                                                                 _._

 

Months later when the new family moved into the apartment there was no trace of the young man living there before them. The little furniture not devoured by the fire had either been auctioned out or thrown away and every last piece of the man seemed to have gone away where ever the paintings had gone, seemingly completely into thin air. If you asked the neighbors the only answer you'd get would be 'really? Someone lived there?' because maybe, just maybe no one had ever really lived there to begin with.

**Author's Note:**

> I just love tormenting poor Battler don´t I? T.T But this idea just wouldn´t leave me alone. 
> 
> For the record I don´t believe that Battler memory-loss or not would ever do such a thing but I guess the story kinda wrote itself... something that tends to ruin my scripts wayyyy to often.
> 
> I guess this can be seen as somewhat of a prequel to my Vocaloid-crossover Another Life Ago depending on how one sees things and of course one´s preferences. But if you also like the Voca-ship KaiMei said fic may be worth checking out ;)
> 
> In any case, thanks for putting up with me and my strange ideas. Hopefully I see you in my next story whatever that may be :).


End file.
